NCDP Clips for November 11, 2013

WFMY: List of Veterans Day Events Across North CarolinaOn Monday, Nov. 11, the United States of America will celebrate and honor veterans who have served and those who are actively serving in the military. As our population of U.S. veterans grows, so does the number of companies and businesses who show their appreciation by offering freebies or deep discount on items. WFMY News 2 has compiled a list of services to mark the day for the men and women who serve and protect our great nation.Rocky Mount Telegram: Take time to give thanks to veterans

Rocky Mount Telegram: Take time to give thanks to veteransU.S. Sen. Kay Hagan recently introduced a bill that would extend a law that temporarily offers a tax credit for businesses that hire unemployed veterans. Last week, the U.S. Senate passed the Helping Homeless Veterans Act of 2013, which included several provisions cosponsored by U.S. Sen. Richard Burr. It is nice to see that our lawmakers are trying to look out for our veterans. That is something we must all do. If you know veterans, reach out to them to say thanks. Reach out to their families to say thanks, too. They make plenty of sacrifices of their own. But don’t stop reaching out after today. Veterans Day is an important day to honor, but one day a year is not nearly enough to say thanks to the brave men and women who serve our country.

Charlotte Observer: Even off the ballot, Pat McCrory influenced electionDid Pat McCrory cost Edwin Peacock votes? Peacock thinks so. The Republican businessman lost Charlotte’s mayoral race Tuesday to Democrat Patrick Cannon by 6,000 votes. Peacock said McCrory, the Republican governor and former Charlotte mayor, often came up when he talked to voters – and usually, not in a positive way.

PoliticsNC: Dispatches from the GOP civil warEdwin Peacock lost the Charlotte Mayor’s race last week. Peacock is a moderate Republican who opposed Amendment One and has served several terms on the Charlotte City Council. He faced fellow council member and Democrat Patrick Cannon but couldn’t cross the finish line first. This week, he laid part of the blame on former Charlotte Mayor and current Governor Pat McCrory. Peacock said that he was repeatedly asked if he would be like McCrory, with the implication that the Governor had caved to right-wingers in the legislature on issues important to the Queen City. His comments lay bare the split in the Republican Party and also bring into question the role the governor and legislature will play in the 2014 elections.

WRAL: Applewhite concedes in Fayetteville mayoral raceBased on unofficial results, Applewhite trailed businessman Nat Robertson by a 51-49 percent margin. The margin of victory was less than 250 votes. Earlier in the week, Applewhite said she was waiting for provisional ballots to be counted before deciding whether to ask for a recount. The race generated an unusually high voter turnout for a municipal election, with more than 20 percent of registered voters casting ballots. "We have examined the election returns and have determined that under the best of circumstances, the likelihood that a recount will change the outcome of the election is slim," Applewhite said in her statement. "I accept the finality of the results and offer my congratulations to Mayor-Elect Nat Robertson."

The Federalist: Pick One: Marriage Culture Or Government CultureVirginia’s close gubernatorial election gives observers much to ruminate on. But one exit poll statistic in particular jumps out: Big story in VA isn’t womens vote (McAuliffe +8) but unmarried women (McAuliffe +42). That means Republican candidate Ken Cuccinelli didn’t lose women so much as single women. He won a majority of the votes of married women. One fascinating crosstab from race showed that Cuccinelli actually did better with married women (51-42%) than with married men (50-44%).

Politico: Consultants step into the spotlightFor years, political consultants operated in the shadows, quietly running the field operations, polling and advertising strategy that keep candidates in the spotlight and propel them to victory. Now they’ve got a new move: self-promotion. Just hours after the polls closed last week, consultants and interest groups started taking credit for Terry McAuliffe’s victory in Virginia and Bill de Blasio’s landslide win in New York. The behind-the-scenes players were suddenly out in front, firing off press releases and volunteering for media interviews.

Chapelboro: State Democratic Party Chair Pleased with Election Results“I think the interference in local control by the general assembly probably was on a lot of people’s minds,” Voller says, “There are a number of places where the general assembly got involved in local issues which traditionally they would not have done.” Voller says he thinks the results in this election are foreshadowing future setbacks for opponents of the Democratic Party. “I think what happened in Charlotte, where the republicans invested heavily and lost, is a bell-weather for 2014,” Voller says.

PAT MCCRORY

News & Observer: McCrory talks off the cuff, sparking controversyBut McCrory’s improvisational approach has risks. At least a dozen times in his first 10 months as governor, McCrory’s remarks have sparked controversies. McCrory is prone to misspeaking. He generalizes in a way that can insult key constituencies. And he mispronounces the names of even his closest aides. In October, McCrory made a comment at a forum in Washington about Medicaid expansion that forced his aides to scramble to clarify his remarks. On other occasions, McCrory blamed the expiration of federal unemployment benefits on the White House, declared that he goes “out into the crowd all of the time” in response to a question about “Moral Monday” protests and blamed the budget he inherited on his Democratic predecessor. In each case, and in others, his comments skewed the truth.

Fayetteville Observer: In mansion repairs, timing can be everythingGiven this state’s struggles to ignite its economy and deep cuts in state budgets, it wasn’t the best time for Gov. Pat McCrory to spend $230,000 in state funds updating his bathrooms. But McCrory has demonstrated a tin ear for symbolism and the way people perceive his actions. It’s just the way he is.

QNotes: Cooper to gay rights group: Day of equality is coming“I personally support marriage equality,” Cooper said. “I’m for basic fairness. It’s that simple and I’m encouraged everyday that another set of eyes and ears are opened to equality and acceptance.” “My faith is a personal matter,” Cooper added. “But my support for marriage equality is well-grounded in that faith.” Cooper is expected to run for governor in 2016, and he alluded to his potential campaign during his speech. “North Carolina is better than this,” Cooper said, noting last year’s anti-LGBT amendment. “North Carolina needs a leadership change.”

WFMY: Roy Cooper Serves As Keynote Speaker At NC Gay Rights EventNorth Carolina’s leading gay rights advocacy group is expecting a record crowd at its annual fundraising event, which features a recently announced supporter of gay marriage. Attorney General Roy Cooper planned to deliver Saturday night’s keynote address at the Equality North Carolina Foundation Gala in Greensboro. The group plans for more than 400 guests. Cooper said last month that he supported marriage equality in North Carolina.

FOX 8: Roy Cooper speaks at event supporting same-sex marriageNorth Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper’s keynote address at a fundraiser Saturday night in support of gay rights drew questions from some social conservatives about how well he would defend the state’s ban on same sex marriages that’s currently being challenged in court. Voter’s approved Amendment 1 back in 2012, which declared it unconstitutional for North Carolina to recognize or perform same-sex marriages or civil unions. A lawsuit was subsequently filed by same-sex couples challenging the law’s constitutionality. Cooper, who recently declared his public support for marriage equality, must defend North Carolina’s Amendment 1 as Attorney General. He’s listed as a defendant on the lawsuit. “I think that the Attorney General is perfectly within his rights to explain that his personal opinions are right. Same sex, loving couples should be able to enter together into a legal union,” said Equality North Carolina Executive Director Chris Sgro, who welcomed Cooper to the organization’s Gala Saturday night in Greensboro. “He can effectively do his job, which is to defend the current laws of the state of North Carolina.”

U.S. CONGRESS

The Hill: Dems tread carefully on voting rights billDemocrats in both chambers are working behind the scenes to draft legislation to re-install the Voting Rights Act protections shot down by the Supreme Court over the summer. But in a sign of the delicate nature of the topic, Senate Democrats are taking care not to rush ahead of the House, for fear of sinking the bill’s chances in the GOP-controlled lower chamber. Instead, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) is working with House Democrats and a small contingent of House Republicans – notably former Judiciary Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner (Wis.), who championed the 2006 VRA reauthorization – in an effort to defuse the partisan politics surrounding the thorny issue and forge a bill that has the best chance of becoming law. "We’ve had hearings and now we’re just trying to quietly get some support, because I don’t want to bring up something that doesn’t go anywhere," Leahy said Thursday.

Politico: Angus King sees hope in budget battleHe’s one of the Senate’s most junior members, but Angus King sees himself playing a big role in the budget battles that lie ahead on Capitol Hill. The Maine independent, who caucuses with Democrats, is trying to position himself as a reasonable lawmaker in a Congress that’s consumed with brinkmanship. He delights Democrats with his criticism of the austerity favored by Republicans. But he’s also caught the eye of some in the GOP for his flirtation with a balanced budget amendment — a longtime Republican goal.

POLITICAL LANDSCAPE

The Week: Why Democrats think they can compete in the South“They have ceded so much real estate to Democrats,” Matt Canter, deputy executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, told The Daily Beast. “They have been catering to these reckless elements in the Tea Party and hurting themselves in a general election.” Establishment Republicans are facing Tea Party challengers in Senate races in Georgia, Louisiana, Kentucky, and North Carolina, increasing the odds that Democrats will face some weak opponents — either an establishment figure bruised by the primary process or a far-right candidate. Earlier this year, The Atlantic’s Molly Ball compared the situation to the one in the West in 2000, when states like Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico seemed off limits. All of them voted for President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.

Washington Post: Elections embolden both GOP establishment and the tea partyThe 2013 elections amounted to a nightmare scenario for Republicans who had hoped the results might provide some resolution to their ongoing intraparty squabble. Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a conservative firebrand closely associated with the tea party, lost the governor’s race in the commonwealth but by a far narrower margin than public polling suggested he would.In a conservative House district in Alabama, an underfunded GOP candidate who openly questioned President Obama’s citizenship nearly ousted a well-known state senator who had run for governor in 2010 and received a last-minute campaign boost from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Those results blunted a remarkable victory in New Jersey by Gov. Chris Christie, who became the first Republican to win the state’s governor’s race with more than 60 percent of the vote in almost three decades. He did so, however, without pulling many down-ballot Republicans into office with him.

ABC11: Could Hagan feel effects of President’s apology?The senator’s office is fired back saying: "Senator Hagan is working to fix the problems with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act by calling for extended enrollment and supporting a bill to let people stay on their current plans, and this is nothing more than a blatant political attack that does nothing to make things work better. She is committed to making this law work for North Carolinians and she shares their frustration at not being able to use the online exchanges to shop for plans." State Democrats are also speaking out in her defense. "While Senator Hagan is making commonsense fixes to get this law implemented better, the North Carolina Republicans, led by Thom Tillis, held our government hostage by supporting a government shutdown and rejected Medicaid expansion to get health care for 500,000 North Carolinians. This is just more of the same tired political nonsense that does nothing to help middle class families," said Micah Beasley, a spokesman for the North Carolina Democratic Party, in a statement.

WRAL: Senate campaign takes shape earlyNorth Carolina, he said, is one of six to 10 U.S. Senate races in which the general election will be closely contested. "I think we’re just getting the appetizer with the Americans for Prosperity ad," said Michael Bitzer, a political science professor and acting provost at Catawba College. "Next year’s flood of money is going to be the test of how much people are able to stand." On the phone in Washington, D.C., this week, Hagan is more than aware of the intensely partisan politics that will likely define the next year of campaigning. With the U.S. House in Republican hands and the Senate controlled by a Democratic majority, gridlock has been the order of the day, leading to the 16-day partial government shutdown. "I was not a part of the government shutdown," she said. "I was certainly subject to it. It was terribly frustrating."

The Hill: Ky. race fractures conservativesThe contentious intraparty battle between Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and challenger Matt Bevin has split influential conservatives, revealing the divided loyalties in the struggle over the GOP’s future. The race has laid bare longstanding gripes conservatives have with McConnell but it has also shown the leader’s impressive influence among even Tea Party leaders such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). McConnell’s clout in Washington has kept pivotal conservative leaders in check and complicated Bevin’s effort to mobilize the grassroots uprising he needs to win the contest scheduled for May of 2014.

The Hill: Donors plot against GOP rebelAmash is among a rebel bloc of House Republicans who pushed Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to make stand on ObamaCare in the fight over the government shutdown and the debt ceiling. The tactic infuriated business groups, several of which have threatened to enter into GOP primaries in order to defeat hardliners in the GOP. Amash has also been a thorn in the side of leadership, and was one of a handful of Republicans who orchestrated a failed attempt to oust Boehner earlier this year. Conservative groups are aware of the challenge to Amash, are pledging to match the business community “punch-for-punch” to defend one of their champions in Congress. “He’s the gold standard of principled constitutionalism in Congress,” said Dean Clancy, the vice president of public policy at FreedomWorks. "We have heard that the K-Street establishment wants to knock him off — and we intend to defend him punch-for-punch.”

Politico: No end in sight to ‘war on women’ attacksHardly a commercial break went by in October in which Virginia voters weren’t reminded of Ken Cuccinelli’s far-right views on abortion and other social issues. How much of a difference the deluge ultimately made after Cuccinelli’s surprisingly narrow loss to Democrat Terry McAuliffe is open for debate. What isn’t in dispute is that Democrats and women’s groups believe their “war on women” playbook worked. And they have every intention of using it again in 2014 even as Republicans and some political observers argue that Virginia didn’t provide a mandate on the issue.

2016

The Week: How Republicans can’t win in 2016The ideal Republican strategy is not terribly convoluted. Find and nominate the most acceptable conservative. Find the swing states where demographic composition of the electorate has been volatile and where there is room among those demographic groups to grow the GOP’s share. Put the two together. (I would add: If I were Machiavellian, I would urge Republicans to do everything they can to suppress the Democratic vote. I am not Machiavellian, and plenty of Republicans are already doing this.)

L.A. Times: Clinton lays campaign groundwork in CaliforniaThe two California events last week illustrated how the machinery for a 2016 presidential race — most important, big money support and grass-roots enthusiasm — is cranking into gear for Clinton regardless of her refusal to say yet whether she will run. While Clinton is not expected to make a decision until next year, the main outside vehicles for advancing her candidacy — Priorities USA, which promoted President Obama’s campaign in the 2012 cycle, and the Ready for Hillary "super PAC" — have begun to corral donors, prepare to refute Republican attacks and set the stage for a formal campaign structure.

Seattle Pi: Sen. Murrary on board if Hillary Clinton runsSen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., confirmed Friday that the 16 Democratic women in the U.S. Senate have sent a letter to Hillary Clinton asking her to run for president in 2016. “She has a dynamic ability to bring people together at this critical time,” Murray, a member of the Senate Democratic leadership, told a Seattle briefing.While reiterating that the former secretary of state will make her own decision on 2016 — “This will be up to Hillary Clinton” — Murray said that “a number of us” did write a non-public letter asking her to seek the presidency. The letter’s signers of the letter included Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., a favorite of Democratic liberals and another talked-about presidential hopeful.

Political Wire: Will Warren Challenge Clinton in 2016?Noam Scheiber speculates that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) might challenge Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination if even it’s an uphill fight. "All of which is to say, if Hillary Clinton runs and retains her ties to Wall Street, Warren will be more likely to join the race, not less. Warren is shrewd enough to understand that the future of the Democratic Party is at stake in 2016. At 64, she knows that if Hillary wins and populates yet another administration with heirs to Robert Rubin, it will be at least eight years before there’s another chance to reclaim the party."

Reuters: New Jersey Governor Christie hedges on serving out full termNewly re-elected New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, widely considered a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2016, on Sunday declined to say whether he would serve out his full four-year term rather than run. Asked by interviewer George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s "This Week" whether he would complete his current term, Christie replied: "Listen, who knows. I don’t know. I’m going to continue to do my job and finish the job. But (to) everybody who is trying to figure out what life is going to bring you a few years from now, I didn’t expect to be sitting here four years ago, George. So, nobody can make those predictions."

BuzzFeed: The Last Two Cases Of Rand Paul Plagiarism That We Are Going To PostAnother section of Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s 2012 book Government Bullies appears to be plagiarized from an article by a think tank scholar, as well as a section of a speech copied from a conservative chain email. As BuzzFeed previously reported, parts of the book were plagiarized from a variety of sources, including the Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute and a Forbes article. As was the case with other instances, Paul includes a link to the work in his book’s footnotes, but does not note that the language itself was taken from the source.

HEALTHCARE

News & Observer: Sen. Hagan wants people to be able to keep their health insuranceSen. Kay Hagan on Thursday joined a push by Senate Democrats to get the Obama administration to make sure that people who like their health insurance can keep it. North Carolina’s Democratic senator said she supported a bill that Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., introduced on Monday, the Keeping the Affordable Care Act Promise Act. Landrieu’s bill would let people keep their current health plans as long as they made the payments, even if the policies don’t meet coverage standards under the law. Insurance companies would have to spell out what parts of the policy aren’t up to the standards.

Washington Post: Wonkbook: Obama shouldn’t apologize for blowing up the terrible individual marketObama was wrong to promise that everyone who liked their insurance could keep it. For a small minority of Americans, that flatly isn’t true. But the real sin would’ve been leaving the individual insurance market alone. The individual market — which serves five percent of the population, and which is where the disruptions are happening — is a horror show. It’s a market where healthy people benefit from systematic discrimination against the sick, where young people benefit from systematic discrimination against the old, where men benefit from systematic discrimination against women, and where insurers benefit from systematic discrimination against the uninformed. The result, all too often, is a market where the people who need insurance most can’t get it, and the people who do get insurance find it doesn’t cover them when it’s most necessary. All that is why the individual market shows much lower levels of satisfaction than, well, every other insurance market.

New York Times: Cuts in Hospital Subsidies Threaten Safety-Net CareThe uninsured pour into Memorial Health hospital here: the waitress with cancer in her voice box who for two years assumed she just had a sore throat. The unemployed diabetic with a wound stretching the length of her shin. The construction worker who could no longer breathe on his own after weeks of untreated asthma attacks and had to be put on a respirator. Many of these patients were expected to gain health coverage under the Affordable Care Act through a major expansion of Medicaid, the medical insurance program for the poor. But after the Supreme Court in 2012 gave states the right to opt out, Georgia, like about half the states, almost all of them Republican-led, refused to broaden the program.

Washington Post: The GOP’s Medicaid GapThe Republican Party’s success in blocking Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion in 25 states has created two health-care systems in America. In one, everyone making less than 133 percent of the poverty line — $26,000 for a family of three — gets free, government-provided health insurance. In the other, there’s no such guarantee — and five million people who could’ve been covered won’t be.

VOTING RIGHTS

Dome: Study shows early voting popularA new study shows the benefits of early voting, a practice that is being restricted starting in the 2014 election in North Carolina. The Brennan Center for Justice Justice at New York University School of Law interviewed 21 state and local election officials around the country who have overseen early voting. It found that early voting reduces stress on the voting system on election day, means shorter lines on election day, improves poll worker performance, allows early identification and correction of registration errors and voting system glitches, and provides greater access to voting and increased voter satisfaction. Based on the study, it recommends that states begin voting a full two weeks before election day. North Carolina law had allowed 17 days of early voting, but that is about to be cut back to 10 days, under a law passed by the legislature this summer. But the measure will allow voting places to be open longer hours.

IMMIGRATION

Politico: White House seeks Republican immigration helpPresident Barack Obama hasn’t given up on immigration reform, but he still needs a way to break through with House Republicans. The White House has reached out to former George W. Bush administration officials, conservative business leaders and selected House members, all in search of a way to hone a message that can move House leaders without scaring them off.

OPINION

News & Observer: Roy Cooper is right to object to laws that ill-serve the public“He can have his personal opinion, but as a lawyer he should not publicize your personal opinion if you’re going to be defending the people who are promoting this common-sense law,” McCrory said. The governor appears to be confused about who Cooper’s client is. He doesn’t represent the best interests of Republicans. He represents the best interests of North Carolina. The state expects its lawyer to give it his best legal advice, and he has. The problem is that the governor and Republican lawmakers didn’t seek his advice on this or many other pieces of controversial legislation. “I did warn the governor not to sign (the voter ID law) because there were numerous changes that were bad public policy,” Cooper says. “A lot of bad public policy was lumped into this bill at the last minute.”

GAME CHANGE 2012

Political Wire: Christie Slams Romney Campaign TeamIn an interview on ABC News, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) brushed off criticism reported in the new book Double Down from a member of Mitt Romney’s 2012 vice presidential vetting team, saying his advice was not something he should "give a darn about." Said Christie: "First off, political advice from people who ran the Romney campaign is probably something nobody should really give a darn about, so let’s start with that.